Screw You Guys, I'm Going Home!

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has morphed into Eric Cartman. When she was being pressured to go to an up or down vote on the topic of energy strategy, rather than debate the topic she did the adult thing and turned off the lights and left the room.

The House Republicans issued an open letter to her (read the whole thing here). Here's an excerpt:

"In protest of you and your Democrat majority not allowing an up or down vote on producing more American energy, we and our House Republican colleagues were prepared to take to the floor on Friday, August 1, 2008, and speak to the nation. Rather than allowing that to happen you and your Democrat majority adjourned the House, turned off the television cameras, shut off the microphones and turned out the lights. Nearly 50 House Republicans remained on the floor of the House in defiance speaking to those citizens gathered in the galleries and to the media."

Is that what our elected officials have sunk to? They'll kill the power and run rather than face a conflict? No wonder the Dems want to get out of Iraq...they can't even stomach a debate in the halls of Congress!

Even George Stephanopoulos was tough on her in an interview (read the transcript at the end of the open letter). After asking her 4 times why she won't allow a vote and receiving non-answers, he finally just says "So you won't allow a vote." I particularly like this exchange:

STEPHANOPOULOS: But why not allow votes on all that? When you came in as speaker, you promised in your commitment book, A New Direction for America, let me show our viewers, you said that bills should generally come to the floor under a procedure that allows open, full, fair debate, consisting of a full amendment process that grants the minority the right to offer its alternatives. If they want to offer a drilling proposal, why can't they have a vote?

PELOSI: They'll have to use their imagination as to how they can get a vote, and they may get a vote. But I have tried, you know, we have serious policy issues in our country.

I completely agree. We do have serious policy issues in this country when one person can make unilateral decisions to keep our elected officials from doing their jobs.

In a final twist of irony, Pelosi scampered off to her 5 week vacation to promote her new book. Yes, that's right, rather than trying to help out her constituency, she is out trying to make herself some money. And what of the planet she's so desperate to save by not allowing us to use more fossil fuel? Apparently that matters little to her as she's traveling from Boston to Philadelphia to Miami to Michigan over the next few days. I guess carbon footprints only matter when they're not hers.